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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22907980">Walk on Hephaestus</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattesaber/pseuds/cattesaber'>cattesaber</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Parahumans Series - Wildbow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Family Dynamics, Gen, Identity Reveal, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trans Male Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 14:20:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,483</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22907980</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattesaber/pseuds/cattesaber</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A universe a step to the left. A change.<br/>Taylor has a different relationship with her parents. Amy is a little more angry. Lisa tells the truth. </p><p>Colin has been keeping secrets.</p><p>  <em>This action will have consequences.</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Walk on Hephaestus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/16942956">The River Meets the Sea</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamoline/pseuds/Tamoline">Tamoline</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This has been stewing in my wips for a while, and I've finally had enough so I'm posting it.</p><p>I don't know whether I'll post it to sv/sb, and I don't know which one or both if I do. It'll probably after a couple more chapters have been posted here at least.</p><p>Not beta'd yet.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’d been alone for most of her life. She’d like to say all of it, but who remembers all the way back then, when you didn’t reach over the countertops and your age was in the lower single digits. There was someone once, long brown hair and a smile... but that had faded so early on all she remembered of early schooling was books. Sitting alone, reading.</p><p>Her parents had split up by that time, working themselves to death or partying to death, either way. A father smiling but commenting that he needed to work 60 hours a week, even with his child there and him a single parent now. They’d hadn’t needed the money. She’d been alone. No reason to talk to adults, no reason to talk with people her age.</p><p>A little older and finally school work really caught her eye. Maths, science, and everything similar to it - not English though, English was a hated subject back then. She was good at all of it. Meagre studying got her As on things that didn’t matter at first, but as she got older they started to really matter. Engineering became a hobby, then a dream. Something she could work towards. She ignored the people around her as she worked - and they ignored her. Nothing about her fit school, and as puberty did it’s ruining she’d never wanted to talk with anyone in particular. Jessica was cruel when she thought no one would notice. Ben liked shoplifting and stealing too much. Ashley didn’t want someone like her to talk to them. Little reasons why she was alone throughout school, even after all those years.</p><p>By the end she didn’t know how to talk to her classmates even if she wanted to.</p><p>College was the next step she could see. It was everything she’d dreamed of. Outside the stuff old house she’d grown up in, a tiny flat she lived in all by herself. Her father paid the rent, likely just happy she was away from him as much as he was away from her. It was a new start. She’d even signed up for a psychology course as well as all the engineering ones she was interested in. All her weaknesses should be covered and it was obvious her social skills were the biggest weaknesses she had.</p><p>It was - easy. At first</p><p>Everything they’d taught in engineering for the first two years was simple for her. She’d looked into things in her own time, wanting to know how things worked. She read journals and books about her subjects and absorbed all of it. Psychology was harder, but everything made sense there in a way it didn’t when she was talking to someone. It could be memorised, and real life couldn’t. Things went over her head, people laughed, and well - it would have been nice to make connections but not necessary.</p><p>Other people were never necessary for her life. When was the last time her parents had contacted her other than money put into her bank account, after all?</p><p>Third year, her final year, was when it started to go wrong. The way she’d always learnt didn’t do enough. She revised but it didn’t work. It wasn’t like she coasted along before, but the perfected efficient way of studying that other people had didn’t come so easy to her. She’d dropped a letter, then another. Her thesis was written with a tense jaw, and double, triple checked what she’d done. Engineering was what she was <em>good</em> at, and it was doing this to her.</p><p>Every improvement was fought for, but one day she did what her adviser suggested - she took a break, just for the night.</p><p>For a college student, she’d never gone clubbing. Never wanted to, and she still didn’t go, but she <em>did</em> go to a bar that was known for being quieter than the ear ruining things she’d seen. It was… alright. With a drink or two she people watched - maybe that would give her more information about social situations - and when a man came up to her she tried to practise them.</p><p>It took an hour for her to accept what he was offering and to try something new. More learning, in a.. different subject.</p><p>It took her a stupid four months to realise that actions had consequence.</p><p>In the end though, she’d calculated everything. The end of this was after she’d left college, all she needed to was to hide it for a maximum of three months. Her father would still pay for her flat - if she didn’t do anything other than email him, of course. He was building up a different life now, he had said. All that meant was this was easier for her.</p><p>She’d talked to no one about what had been happening, and no one noticed. She got a job doing spreadsheets, coding that paid well enough. She defended her thesis and left college with a degree in something she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Money was stored up for <em>after</em>, health insurance kept up to date, doctors appointments and notes about everything that she needed to do. It was efficient. If she made lists and wrote notes she wouldn’t forget anything. She could do everything she needed to do.</p><p>Yet, she didn’t know how to do this. Everything felt wrong, in a way that was bone deep, and her plans didn’t seem good enough. What about the worst case scenarios? Everything about this was poking at her weak spots. She could easily admit she didn’t know what to do with people in any situation other than work. How could she teach a smaller being to be social by herself, even after <em>years</em> she was the most incompetent person she knew socially.</p><p>Everyday it felt like she was extremely underprepared, but there was nothing she could do. The time was ticking down, more and more pressure washing over her. An overwhelming feeling of <em>wrong</em> not letting her breathe.</p><p>
  <em>Times up.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The hospital didn’t like how she had no emergency contacts, but she carefully and neatly went through all the paperwork she had needed to do before hand and they understood. If she died - and that was very unlikely - everything was already set.</p><p>She lived, everything went fine.</p><p>The baby - her child - was everything she’d research a child that young would be like. No personality just yet, but needing careful care. She could do that. The baby looking like her was more up in the air, newborns didn’t look like anyone, but all the nurses said she did. The women in the ward didn’t seem to like her and kept asking about her daughters father like he had done anything, but it was only a small irritation. She didn’t have to stay there long enough for it to really get to her - she might have been the odd one out of all of them, but did they matter really?</p><p>She’d bought a camera just for the child. She needed to document her daughter growing up, needed to take pictures of her not only on special occasions - she wrote several reminders just for it. Her daughter wasn’t going to have a three year gap in pictures, even as a baby, unlike she herself had as soon as the shiny coating had worn off.</p><p>Then they - both of them - were released and the pressure hit her a little more. Working was good, <em>recovering</em> a lot less so. The home visit nurse asked her to sleep more than what she was getting, but it was a waste of time. Her sleeping hours were being carefully kept, and she was having enough. More than enough, really - it was more efficient to sleep a little longer and heal faster than it was to work through everything.</p><p>Even though she <em>wanted</em> to work through everything.</p><p>She worked and cared for her daughter, sparing some time for exercise, monitoring her improvement over time. It felt - good, the training, the work, the <em>betterment</em>. It was one of the few things that made the <em>pressure</em> lift off her shoulders, even for a short time.</p><p>She took on more tasks, a lot of them easily done, but it needed doing - the money was good too. Saving up until she was <em>allowed</em> to join a gym. Using the extra money to hire a childminder, carefully looked over and paperwork ran through a fine mesh sieve. A couple of hours a week in the gym, her daughter being looked after - the pressure was just a bit less.</p><p>She was well aware she wasn’t suited to being a… parent. She tried her best. Right now there wasn’t much that she could fuck up and research worked, but as the child got older it got harder.</p><p>It was a bitter pill to swallow to admit that she didn’t want her daughter to become anything like her, not really. In anything other than drive and work ethic, anyway.</p><p>She went to the gym more. Started weight training. Took her daughter to the doctors, kept tags on how she was progressing, took more pictures. Bought some protectorate and ward baby clothing especially for that. Heroes were good - she would have liked to be a hero. Would still like to be a hero, but she didn’t have any powers, did she. Her dreams of being like Hero weren’t going to come true any day now.</p><p>Her daughter aged, smiled, grabbed and rolled when placed on her back. The books on speech development said speaking normally and clearly would help her daughter learn how to speak. A book on sign language for young children that caught her eye was read - then incorporated into their daily routine. Everything she could study, that could scientifically prove it was beneficial was added, if possible. Trying to make the good outweighs the bad.</p><p>Putting on muscle felt good, she’d always been very tall, but the obvious strength made her feel - steady. In control. The old woman that always tutted at her, and her daughter, who commented on her muscles and statue like it was something to be ashamed of was stared in the eye and dismissed. Her opinions didn’t matter. But yet…</p><p>The comments on how she didn’t seem like a proper woman, that she was unfeminine felt like <em>praise</em>.</p><p>It was recorded, she wrote notes, she thought about it. It felt important. Like she was missing something. She listened more, watched herself. She didn’t want to go into the woman only areas in the gym, it didn’t - feel right. ‘Miss’ before her name didn’t suit her. Her unprofessional coworker who called everyone ‘bro’ fit better than ‘miss’ ever did - and she doubted she’d ever been a ‘bro’ in her life. All of it was evidence.</p><p>For something.</p><p>It wasn’t until it was winter did the facts reveal themselves. Wearing a thick puffy jacket, hair recently cut short - shorter than she’d asked for, even, but it wasn’t bad - A man called out to her on the street.</p><p>He called her ‘<em>sir</em>.’ He called her <em>‘mister</em>’.</p><p>It felt <em>good</em>.</p><p>More research was done. She taught her daughter the sign for father, instead of mother. She put on some more muscle. Found a doctor that was <em>for</em> that, for resources about what she wanted to know. They said only she’ll know, only she can say what she is.</p><p>She cut her hair a little shorter, wore a jacket, went somewhere <em>she</em> never visited before. Listened, thought, made notes.</p><p>Evidence showed that the hypothesis was correct.</p><p>It didn’t mean he thought he would be any better as a father, though. Still, he studied. His daughter was getting older now, and he had… thoughts on what he needed to do to improve the chances of a good life for her.</p><p>It would have to be open, so he can check on her. They must be science oriented, and unlikely to ever abandon her if she wasn’t perfect. There were other points on the list too, and he wouldn’t let her go unless every one of them were checked off, for her sake. He changed jobs, and wondered why he was still in that little apartment he got years ago.</p><p>A while later, he met a woman. She and her husband wanted to adopt - she ticked all the boxes he had, even after he told her about him and his life. She taught in college, she had done gender studies - her husband was a smart and hard worker, and both of them clearly adored each other. They talked, and talked - and he let them meet his daughter.</p><p>She charmed them. The woman adored the signing she did, the man thought she was adorable - they looked over all the pictures he had taken, and there were a lot - and both of them were starting to get hopeful. He let them be. His daughter liked them. They were pretty much perfect. They wanted an open adoption too, saying he obviously cared for his daughter. He did, he really did, and that was why he was doing this.</p><p>He let it happen. Got the papers ready, made sure his daughter was as safe as possible. He trusted them with her.</p><p>Signed them.</p><p>And then, he let them take her away.</p><p>It hurt, the small apartment seeming bigger now, without her things. He kept the pictures, of course, and let them have copies. He would even visit - an uncle, not a father. He didn’t live that far away. He would be there for birthdays and christmas, she would know him, would even know she was adopted and if she ever asked, she would find out she was his. It wasn’t the same.</p><p>He was alone.</p><p>His life started revolving around his job, but it wasn’t good enough. There were many things he didn’t like about it, and the inefficiency of his bosses was one of them. He worked. He did some freelance work. He designed things in his spare time. They didn’t like <em>that</em>, they didn’t like <em>this.</em> Something wasn’t good enough. He changed his name to the name he wanted, and for luck he changed his surname too. To something <em>better</em>. A new life. A new person.</p><p>And then -</p><p>After -</p><p>After time and pressure and-</p><p>He was a cape.</p><p>He could <em>do something</em>, and be good at it. He could engineer and <em>tinker </em>and save people. He joined the Protectorate, joined the squads they had back then. He moved around a lot, but kept in contact with Annette and Danny. He would not allow himself to ever<em> lose</em> contact with them.</p><p>He had proved himself, showed off his skills, and one day they offered him a place in one of their new PHQs. Asked him where he wanted to go if he had a preference. It was easy enough to say ‘Brockton Bay’. And Brockton Bay didn’t turn down Armsmaster joining them.</p>
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